Chinese Businessmen Keep $10,000 Wines on Restaurant Menu

Wine director Dan Davis in the wine cellar at Commander's Palace in New Orleans. Davis keeps the cellar barred with an iron gate. Photographer: David G. Spielman/Commander's Palace via Bloomberg

June 10 (Bloomberg) -- While perusing the 1,800-selection
wine list at New York’s Aureole restaurant, my wife nudged me at
about number 785 and said, “Pssst. I’m still here.”

I apologized for being so distracted, but I was completely
awed by the breadth of offerings, such as 18 vintages of Domaine
Leflaive and 10 from the hard-to-get Harlan Estate.

The list teems with great rarities, including a 2009
Romanee-Conti for $10,500 and a 2010 for $11,450 (which is
actually something of a bargain, since those same wines sell
in wine shops for more).

Aureole also lists scores of wines even connoisseurs are
unlikely to seek out, including a $50 Alsatian chasselas. I
asked wine director Justin Lorenz when did he last actually
serve a chasselas? “As a matter of fact,” he said, “just
last weekend. A guest wanted to try something he’d never had
before at around that price, so I recommended it.”

Who wants to pay $10,000 for a bottle of burgundy I
inquire. “I’ll sell four or five $300 to $500 bottles every
night,” said Lorenz. “Above $500, a couple of bottles per
month. For wines $1,000 and up, Americans don’t order many, but
some of our South American and Chinese clientele do.”

Many restaurants create huge “trophy” wine lists for
prestige, hoping to join the 75 restaurants holding Wine
Spectator’s Grand Award for cellars that “generally offer 1,500
or more selections, with superior breadth and depth in many of
the world’s classic wine-producing regions.”

Tampa Winner

One winner, Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, Florida, boasts a
whopping 6,800 labels and 500,000 bottles.

At the Plaza-Athenee Paris Hotel, the Michelin three-star
Alain Ducasse restaurant stocks 1,000 labels and 35,000 bottles.
Its sommelier Laurent Roucayrol, just crowned Best Sommelier of
the Year by L’Academie Internationale de la Gastronomie, concurs
that the Russians and Chinese are less concerned with the cost
of a bottle.

“Most people are drinking less but better. For our
business clients wine by the glass is becoming increasingly
popular, with an average of two glasses per person,” he says.
“Sensitivity is the main concern for me. I do my best to please
them by selecting a wine closest to their expectations.”

Today’s business meals are a far cry from the ‘‘Mad Men”
days when executives downed three-martini lunches and First
Growth Bordeaux. Today, drinking at a business lunch is not
encouraged; staying lucid is. “I entertain clients at lunch two
or three times a week,” says Anthony J. Forgione, assistant
vice president for Hudson Valley Bank in White Plains, New York,
“and I’d say only about 20 percent of them order even a glass
of wine at lunch.”

Spending Less

Smaller expense accounts are also a factor. “Presently my
limit for a business meal, including wine, per guest is 80
pounds ($120),” says Seema Arora, Global Head of Portfolio
Trading Sales for Credit Agricole Cheuvreux International Ltd,
in London. “I can certainly go over that if necessary, but I
don’t spend hundreds of pounds for wine at a business meal.”

In such a business environment, how does a new restaurant
start a wine list from scratch to meet guest expectations?
“Buying trophy wines is often done just to please the ego of
the restaurateur or sommelier,” says Roberto Della Pietra, wine
consultant for London’s newly opened Tartufo in Chelsea.

“If you have a telephone and a checkbook anyone can build
a huge list, and there is a thin line between being bright and
being arrogant. My job is to have wines that elevate the cuisine
of our chef Manuel Oliveri, with some little gems on it.”

Customer Rules

With an average wine bill of 15 pounds at lunch and 25
pounds at dinner, Della Pietra says, “We are testing what the
customer wants. I’m not going to base the wine list on big
expensive names.”

New Orleans is one of the few cities where wine is still
enjoyed at lunch, where people always find something to
celebrate at the drop of a hat. “It’s still show-off time in
this city,” says Ti Martin, co-proprietor of Commander’s
Palace, whose cellar stocks 2,500 labels. “A lot of people fly
in just because we have the Grand Award, and they order some big
old wines. It’s an over-the-top, I’m-going-to-treat myself
experience for them, and they don’t skimp.”

Still, restaurants like Commander’s Palace must constantly
come up with ways to sell more wine, especially older bottlings.

“In our slowest months, August and September, we hold our
‘Grape Nuts’ sale, with 150 bottles at half price, which helps
us to manage our inventory. And we brought back a silly thing
from the past -- the 25 cent martini (limit three per person).
What happens is that it primes people to have one, then say,
what the hell, and they order a $20 glass of Meursault.”

(John Mariani writes about wine for Muse, the arts and
culture section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are
his own.)

Muse highlights include Manuela Hoelterhoff on opera and
Philip Boroff on the Tony Awards.